


Final Boarding Call on Track Twenty-Two

by fulfilled



Category: Gilmore Girls
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-12
Updated: 2015-11-12
Packaged: 2018-05-01 09:00:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,795
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5199995
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fulfilled/pseuds/fulfilled
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jess, a book tour, and a latenight train ride.  AU ish, future fic ish fluff.</p><p>Originally published July 4, 2006.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Final Boarding Call on Track Twenty-Two

**Author's Note:**

> Just a fluffy little AU-ish, future-fic-ish gift for my fellow passengers on the Jess Love-Train. We need some happiness and a few giggles right about now…

"Final call for express service to Hartford, now boarding on track twenty-two."

"Yeah, yeah," Jess muttered, shifting his black leather messenger back further up on his shoulder and breaking into a sprint, pulling the small wheeled suitcase behind him.

"This is the final call; I repeat, the final boarding call for service between Washington and Hartford," the mechanical voice boomed through the loudspeaker, echoing through the empty station.

Jess looked up at the large track numbers above his head. Two tracks down. He ran faster, calling out as he reached the platform, "Wait!" The conductor saw him and acknowledged him with a nod, and Jess launched himself through the nearest open door tumbling into an empty seat in a heap of limbs and bags and leather jackets.

The train started with a slight lurch, throwing Jess forward and knocking his bag to the floor. Leaning down to pick it up, he looked around the car. Nearly empty—there were only six other passengers: a mother with her young son, who was already fast asleep against her shoulder; a teenage couple, who were, thankfully, at the other end of the car; a rumpled-looking businessman with his head leaning against the window, staring out; and an older man, sitting straight up in his seat, reading a book. Typical for a midnight run, most likely, although Jess didn't have a lot of experience riding the 12:14 from Washington to Hartford.

He leaned back in his seat, sighed, and closed his eyes. Why he'd had the bright idea of taking the train home instead of flying, he wasn't sure, but here he was. Five hours on the train.

This was his third book tour, his fifth book, and he was getting it down to a routine by now—fly into a city, do a radio interview or two, do readings in a couple of bookstores, sit at a table signing books for a few hours, fly out. Sometimes the itinerary included an interview with a local TV affiliate or a dinner with some bigwig associated with the publishing house, but Jess' following still wasn't large enough to garner nationally syndicated exposure, and that suited him just fine.

He liked it this way. His books earned enough to make a comfortable living, and he could devote most of his "working hours" to writing, but he wasn't so popular that his publishers pressed him for more than he was willing to give.

In the last few years, he had fallen into a nice routine of releasing about one book a year, give or take a month or two, spending three weeks on the road, and then hibernating for the next eleven months, surfacing every few weeks at his editor's office in New York. It was a good system—one that Jess could easily live with until he retired.

Except for this little aberration in the routine. This time, instead of flying the last leg home, Jess had decided to take the train. The logic behind that decision eluded him as he stretched his legs and balled up his jacket beneath his head, trying to get comfortable, but at the time, it had gone something along the lines of, "I like the train. I can write on the train. It'll be slower-paced than flying, and it'll give me a chance to wind down after being on the road." If only it worked that way. Instead, Jess was itching to sleep in his own bed, take his clothes out of the suitcase, and make a cup of coffee in his own kitchen and drink it out of a ceramic mug, not a paper cup.

Only a few more hours, though—he'd check his watch, but opening his eyes and lifting his wrist would take too much effort. He sighed and shifted deeper into the seat. So much for writing on the train. He hadn't been envisioning an empty car at midnight, though. Mid-day with a car full (although not rush-hour-full) of people to observe was more the plan, but his editor had asked him to stay in Washington for an extra day for a dinner, and he was anxious enough to get home that leaving after dinner had been a better option than waiting yet another full day to get back.

Jess was just dozing off when there was a tap on his shoulder. "Ticket, sir," he heard a voice saying. Prying his eyes open, he dug into the outer pocket of his bag, pulled out the ticket, and handed it to the conductor without looking. The conductor punched it, placed it in the back of the seat in front of Jess, and tipped his hat, smiling.

"Enjoy your ride, sir," she said, continuing down the aisle.

Jess grunted, pushed the bag further under the seat with his feet, and curled back up in the corner, trying to fall fully asleep—or, at least, as fully as he could without actually lying down.

What felt like mere minutes later, he was jarred awake by the train's sudden stop. He kept his eyes shut for a moment, trying to process what he should be expecting. Were they there already? It was an express train—he didn't think there were any stops between Washington and Hartford—but it didn't feel like it had been five hours. He must have been sleeping more deeply than he had expected to.

When Jess opened his eyes, they were assaulted by sunlight, and he snapped them shut again immediately, only to open them a crack as a thought hit him. His train was scheduled to arrive in Hartford at 5:31 a.m. There was no way it should be this light out. Had he somehow missed his stop? Had the conductor neglected to wake him? Was the train stalled, and he had slept through an announcement?

Jess groaned. This was just his luck—just when he was in a hurry, everything conspired against him. He was about to check his watch and then try to fish his cell phone out of his bag when a voice coming from the loudspeaker stopped him.

"Ladies and gentlemen, we apologize for the delay. Due to some unforeseen mechanical difficulties, we need you to exit the train. Please gather your personal belongings and exit the train. I repeat, this train will be out of service while it is being repaired. We will inform you as soon as we have any further information, and will do our best to get you to your destination as quickly as possible. Once again, we apologize for any inconvenience."

Jess cursed under his breath as he draped his jacket over his arm, picked up the messenger bag, pulled up the handle on the suitcase, and checked to make sure nothing had fallen out when the bag fell on the floor. He really needed to call home, just so someone knew what was going on, and knew that he hadn't been kidnapped or injured or something.

He stopped in the middle of the aisle to dig in the front pocket of the bag, wanting to get this over with as quickly as possible, planning to find someplace in the station to get a cup of coffee and sit down with a novel to try and pass the time, but the conductor was coming through the cars, doing the final walk-through.

"Excuse me, sir," she said, "but I'm going to have to ask you to leave the car."

"Yeah, just a second," he muttered, digging through the bag, not finding what he was looking for. Had it fallen on the ground? He turned around to look under his seat again, but the slight woman in the dark blue conductor's hat stopped him.

"I'm sorry, sir, but you need to leave the train."

"Miss, could I just…" he tried to squeeze around her, to no avail.

"Sir, I need to ask you to leave."

"Look, I just need to look for my phone. I think it fell down on the seat," he said, irritated.

She shook her head, and a strand of brown hair fell out from beneath her cap. "I'm sorry sir," she said firmly. "We need to ask everyone to leave the train immediately. You can call Lost Property, and if it's turned in, they'll be able to return it to you." She twirled the hair around her finger and snapped her gum in his face, effectively ending the conversation, then put her hands on his shoulders and pushed him towards the door.

"Fine," Jess snapped, shrugging her hands off him.

When he left the train, he saw that it was, indeed, daylight, and what surprised him most was that they were outdoors—this wasn't a large station, like any major terminal he had ever been in. It reminded him, in fact, of a scene out of an old storybook, set in the English countryside, or somewhere pastoral like that. The railway siding was built almost in the middle of nowhere, with a single, two-lane road leading up to it; a tiny parking lot behind the office (with no cars in it); and a small, wooden ticket office set a few feet back from the tracks.

He stepped down onto the wooden platform—wait, down? Didn't these doors open flush with the platform? No, this station was so old that it didn't have the same concrete platform with the yellow "stand back" tape as every other station. Someone must have put some blocks beneath the door, creating steps of sorts.

Jess took a few steps away from the train, taking in everything around him. This was… unbelievable, to say the least—it was so quintessentially perfect that it made his arrival in Stars Hollow so many years ago seem like taking the bus into the ghetto. The station was set in the middle of a bright green meadow, almost too bright to be real, and the day was bright, sun beating down from high in the sky. It must have just rained recently, though the platform wasn't wet and there weren't any clouds. Still, the brightest rainbow he had ever seen arced perfectly over the horizon.

What time was it, anyways? Jess looked at his watch, but it showed 2:46 a.m., which, judging by the sky, couldn't possibly be right. He held it to his ear. Silence. Great. Something else to make this whole day so much better, as if it wasn't fantastic enough already.

Well, nothing else to do but get that coffee. And find a place to dump this stuff, he thought, as his bag slid down his upper arm, jerking on his elbow for the tenth time since shuffling off the train. He dragged his bags into the station and found a corner to leave the suitcase in, jacket draped over the handle. He doubted anyone would steal anything—even if they did, he almost didn't care by this point. It would just mean one less piece of luggage to drag home. Besides, he only had two changes of clothes in there, anyways—he'd sent the big suitcase home ahead of him, knowing that he wouldn't want to carry it on the train.

Straightening up, Jess looked around the station. No benches inside, but he was sure he'd seen some lining the outside of the building, so he'd check on those—after he got some coffee, that is. He scanned the tiny shops and kiosks lining the edge of the room. A magazine stand, the ticket window, a tiny coffee and sandwich shop, and… a store devoted entirely to glass unicorns? It was at least twice the size of any other segment of the station, and Jess stared in disbelief. How—? He didn't even want to know the answers to the questions that were filling his head at that particular moment, the first of them being, "Where the hell am I?"

Ten minutes later, coffee in hand, having narrowly escaped introduction to every single unicorn in the store (the same woman was the proprietor of both the unicorn store and the coffee shop), Jess finally left the station through the doors opposite the ones he had entered through. Expecting to find himself in the parking lot, he had to blink twice when he found himself standing in the middle of the field of daisies that he had seen from the train. Disorienting, to say the least. How could he possibly lose his sense of direction in the middle of nowhere like this?

There was a bench, so Jess sat down, pulled out his book, and began to read. He never got more than three sentences down the page, though, before something would distract him—a butterfly flying through his field of vision, an especially bright ray of sunshine hitting his eyes, a breeze blowing a whiff of daisy pollen up his nostrils. He kept shifting positions, trying to get comfortable, searching for a better angle to avoid the sun's direct light, and brushing off the pollen that seemed to be sticking to his nose, but nothing was working. Finally, he slammed the book shut and went inside.

"Excuse me," he said, banging on the ticket window. "Excuse me!"

The station-master turned, a pleasant smile lighting up her face and giving life to her blue eyes. "Yes, sir?"

Jess braced himself against the counter with his hands, trying to hold himself up, feeling like he was going to fall asleep standing there. The coffee here was obviously decaf. "Do you know how long the repairs are going to take?" he demanded.

"Well, sir, I don't…"

"Rough estimate," he interrupted. "Am I going to be stuck in this God-forsaken hell-hole until… when? An hour from now? Tomorrow? Three months?"

She consulted a clipboard on her desk, then shook her head. "It doesn't look good," she said, "but…" she cut herself off mid-sentence and stared at him. "Wait a minute…" a light dawned on her face. "I recognize you! You're Jess Mariano!"

He sighed. This was the part he liked least, some days. He wasn't recognized all that often, but every now and then, someone put two and two together and placed him, based on his author picture. "Yes, that's me."

"I love your work!" she gushed. "I've read every single one of your books, and I've always wanted to come to one of your readings, but I've never been able to! This is fantastic! I can't believe you're actually in my station! And… wow… you're way hotter in real life than your author picture."

Jess looked at the ground, trying to conceal his eye roll. "Uh, thanks, I guess."

The woman was on the loudspeaker now. "Ladies and gentlemen, I am pleased to announce that we have fame in our midst today!" The station was suddenly filled—there were a lot more passengers when they were all in a small station than when they were spread out over twelve almost-empty cars.

Jess tried to signal to the woman to stop, but she was on a roll. "This man is one of the best new authors in America today—ladies and gentlemen, may I present… Jess Mariano!" She gave a whoop—right into the microphone, which squawked in protest—and began clapping, and soon, everyone in the station was clapping and cheering with her. The cheers turned into chanting, and the applause turned into hand-clapping and foot-stomping in time to his name, and Jess just stood there.

This was the weirdest thing that had ever happened to him, and that was saying a lot, Jess thought, coming from someone who had lived in Stars Hollow.

Suddenly, he found himself standing dumb-struck in the middle of a circle of people who were still chanting his name, circling around him, doing… the Bunny Hop? Somehow, they had organized in the blink of an eye, and now they were singing the Bunny Hop song—da da da da da dum, da da da dum, da da da da da dum, dum, dum, dum—except that they had substituted "Jess! Jess! Jess!" for the final "dum, dum, dum"s.

Jess was starting to feel very, very claustrophobic, especially as the circle closed in on him, still chanting and singing, and began to move towards the train. He found himself pushed along by the crowd, unable to escape the Bunny-Hopping literary fans, who were now quoting passages from his books as they jumped.

When they reached the platform, however, they quieted as one, and the conductor appeared in the doorway of the train.

"Ladies and gentlemen," she said, and her voice caused Jess' head to snap up in disbelief—that was Rory! And she was wearing the conductor's uniform, with… a tiara instead of the cap? "The train has been repaired, we will continue with our route as soon as everyone has re-boarded the train."

The crowd cheered, and as someone in the back started singing, "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow," Jess felt himself lifted off his feet and carried towards the train doors, where two more Rorys, each wearing a beauty pageant sash with the words "Jess' Queen" written across it in gold, glittery letters, were unfurling a banner between them, which read, "The Jess Love-Train," in bright pink letters.

"For he's a jolly good fellow, for he's a jolly good fellow, for he's a jolly good fellooooowwwww…. Which nobody can deny!" The voices sang in cadence with the motion carrying Jess towards the train, and he closed his eyes, trying to shake the whole thing off. This was just too bizarre. The song continued, though, and they didn't seem to be any closer to reaching the train—they were still propelling him forward, and his feet still weren't touching the ground, which was almost more disconcerting than anything else.

They were humming the song now, and it sounded tinny—like it was coming from a distance. Jess opened his eyes, but it was dark all around him, and his neck was stiff. He looked around, letting his eyes adjust slowly to the lack of light. His head was crammed into a corner, his feet were propped up, the lights around him were off, and he could still hear someone humming, "For he's a jolly good fellow," over and over and over. He groped for the person's mouth—whoever was still singing—hoping to clap a hand over it and shut them up, but when his hand reached the source of the sound, it pulled up a vibrating cell phone instead.

He blinked several times, trying to read the lighted display, but gave up—his eyes were still out of focus—and punched the 'talk' button.

"'Lo?" he growled into the phone.

"Whatcha doin'?" he heard, half whispered into the other end.

"Urhhhh…" he mumbled, still unable to form words, still wondering where the butterflies and unicorns and Bunny-Hopping psychos had gone.

"Oh, don't tell me you were sleeping," the voice on the other end of the phone said.

"I…" Jess rubbed his eyes and sat up straighter, finally recognizing the voice. "I guess I must have been."

"Well," said Rory, "the baby woke me up—funny, this child doesn't care what time it is… she's always hungry. Takes after her grandmother…"

"Or her mother," Jess cut her off gently.

"Oh hush," Rory said, and he could almost see her sticking out her tongue at him. "As I was saying… I'm awake, so you're going to be awake. We're just having some mother-daughter bonding time… all Gilmore women bond over food… but I thought it would be nice if Daddy joined us."

Jess leaned back into the seat, leaning against the corner between the seat and the window, grinning madly, fiddling with the white gold wedding ring that adorned his left hand. "I miss you." He could picture her, in their bedroom in Stars Hollow, sitting in the rocking chair that Luke had built when the baby was born, wearing an old pair of sweat shorts and one of his t-shirts, the baby held tightly against her chest, wrapped tightly in a receiving blanket, the quilt that Lorelai had sewn as a wedding gift draped over both of them as the baby nursed. "Remind me never to take off for three weeks at one time ever again."

"When are you going to be home?" Rory asked.

Jess smiled. "Soon," he promised.

"Talk to me," Rory said. "I'm not going to bother going back to sleep now—I'll just stay awake until it's time to drive into Hartford to pick you up at the station." She yawned. "Tell me a story."

"Only if you tell me what I missed first," he responded.

"Well, my mom decided to go on strike against Luke until he let her use her cell phone in the diner, but that just backfired, because Luke had a better profit that week than he's had in years, and Mom was just cranky. So she's gone back to trying to sneak in a headset and hope he doesn't notice the wire coming out of her ear." She paused, thinking. "The baby smiled for the first time—but I got it on video, and took tons of pictures, so you'll get to see it all."

Jess felt a knot form in his stomach, and a lump clogged his throat. "What else?" he said thickly. Just a few more hours, he reminded himself. You can hold both of them in just a few hours.

"Jess…" After five years of marriage, Rory could read the slightest nuances in his voice.

"What else?" he asked again, knowing he'd cry when he saw her, not wanting to do it twice within the space of a few hours.

"It's your picture that's up in Taylor's window this time," she acquiesced. "He's decided that you should be Stars Hollow's main tourist attraction, and he's trying to create an entire festival devoted to you. Miss Patty's helping."

"What!" Jess yelped, a little too loudly for a train car in the middle of the night.

Rory giggled. "Gotcha. Now. Tell me a story."

"Well," Jess began, "you're never going to believe this bizarre dream I had just before you called. Remind me to never accept the brownies your mother gives me as a 'travelling snack' ever again."

And as she listened to the story of the unicorns, and the Bunny Hop, and the daisies, and the rainbows, Rory looked at the tiara hanging on the corner bedpost, and smiled. She knew that she was, now and always, the Queen of the only Jess Love-Train that really mattered, and as she held the Princess tightly in her arms, they watched the sky lighten, and waited for morning to come, and with it, their King to return home.


End file.
